Amor Vincit Omnia

Some decades back, a Yoruba musician sang about some future date when bush rats would be shooting hunters. (Lojo’waju o, okete a ma yinbo f’oloko), he said. That musician must have been speaking metaphorically, though. But his message is not lost: that a time would come when things stranger than fiction would be happening. I had always expressed optimism that I would have been long gone before bush rats would be shooting hunters. Alternatively, I should be a bush rat myself. Or better still; if I happen to be around at that time, humans must have developed more potent weapons that would make the guns the bush rats would turn against them look like a child’s toy.

But that time that I had thought would take eternity to come if it ever did appears to be here, with as many as 21 countries legalising same-sex marriage, the United States being the latest of such countries. Other countries that had done same since the Netherlands went that way in 2001 include Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden the United Kingdom and Uruguay. With the judgment by the American Supreme Court on June 26, it would appear that supporters of gay marriage in the United States finally had the last laugh. That day would therefore forever remain indelible in their minds, given the bitter contest and activism for the soul of the marriage institution between the ‘naturalists’ (the one man one wife people) and the ‘un-naturalists’ (those in support of gay marriage).

Five judges voted for gay marriage while four opposed it. Expectedly, the judgment has elicited reactions that could be described as mixed; or simply different folks, different strokes. Whilst those in support of the judgment have been celebrating across the country, those who object to it also have expressed their dissatisfaction. Indeed, to demonstrate how shocked some Americans were about the court’s decision, some counties initially refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the judgment, with their officials insisting that doing that also offends their religious sensibilities. But it is apparent it is only a matter of time for all across the country to comply with the judgment.

Although there is a 25-day period after a decision is handed down where individuals can petition the Supreme Court for a rehearing, hopes of supporters of traditional marriage would appear dimmed because the court had almost never granted any rehearing.

So, what are the likely consequences of this judgment that has been variously described as ‘freedom for marriage’ and ‘victory for love’, for the rest of the world, now that the all-powerful America has pitched its tent with those that many people feel are depraved? I mean how does it feel when a man decides to take on another man from behind, in the name of marriage? Or when a woman has to do it orally with another woman? Or, when it has to be done differently through ways that were not contemplated by God as enshrined either in the spirit or the letter of the holy writ, the Bible?

Holy Moses! When God created man and woman, He did so for some purposes, among which is procreation. Again, God first created man and then created woman to be his helper. Let’s even assume that same-sex marriage does not in any way hamper the help-mate aspect of the relationship; that is, that man can still help man and woman can still help woman in same- sex marriage, what of the aspect of procreation? Are we not going the way of the Tower of Babel? Or Sodom and Gomorrah?

Of course, nothing here suggests that homosexuality is new even in our own country. Indeed, one has heard several tales, some sounding like moonlight tales, about its prevalence in very high places and even among some students in a particular part of the country. Moreover, the competition among leisure spot owners and some hoteliers in Lagos for the pockets of their clients has pushed many of them to engage young girls and ladies of between 18 and 38 years of age to work as strippers and dance provocatively nude in their bars. In some cases, the girls even reportedly engaged in anal sex in the open. It was the 14 years imprisonment by the National Assembly for gay sex that has reduced the activities of these girls and their patrons who at the height of arousal reportedly engaged in homosexuality, also openly.

Of course, too gonorrhea we know; syphilis we know, even staphylococcus we know as sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). As a matter of fact, a time there was when gonorrhea became so common in the country that it was referred to as a sickness of the famous (arun gbajumo). When in the late 1980s (or thereabout) I wrote a piece titled “The danger down below”, I had thought that the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was going to be the height of the consequence of sexual perversion. But, with same-sex marriage, the worst is probably yet to come.

With this latest development, it would appear that America has passed the mundane stage of ‘victory for democracy’ that we perpetually celebrate whenever a court gives any judgment in our favour in Nigeria. That appeared settled many years ago in America, their America. In America, what is in vogue is ‘freedom for marriage’; ‘victory for love’, etc. In effect, in America, love conquers all (Amor Vincit Omnia).

But America has to be careful about this its usual ‘one-cap-fits-all policy all over the world. It must resist the temptation to impose this as world standard as it tried to do by threatening Nigeria with sanctions when the then President Goodluck Jonathan signed the anti-gay marriage bill into law last year. This was even as America’s Supreme Court was yet to give its blessing to same-sex marriage. As I have always argued on this page, one man’s meat is another man’s fish (please pardon my adulteration of the original saying). The rest of the world too should have the right to freely decide whether given their socio-cultural circumstances, they want it gay or straight. That is the beauty of democracy.